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Sewage Work Lags at Source Of Tap Water

A program to modernize 102 sewage plants discharging waste water into New York City's reservoirs is drastically behind schedule, jeopardizing the city's efforts to avoid having to build a $6 billion water filtration plant, according to federal and state officials monitoring the city's plan to cut pollution of its water supply.

The latest criticism of the city's sewage-control program came yesterday in a 40-page report released by James M. Tierney, an assistant state attorney general who in 1998 was designated by Gov. George E. Pataki as the state's ''watershed inspector general'' and charged with tracking the city's cleanup work.

The report concludes that the sewage-plant modernization program is ''grossly behind schedule'' and has not progressed beyond preliminary planning, making it nearly impossible for the city to fulfill its commitment to complete the work by May 2002.

''Giving them every benefit I could, if this continues at this pace, this program could be two years late,'' said Mr. Tierney, whose position was created as part of an agreement on a cleanup plan signed in 1997 by the city, state and several dozen communities around the city's reservoirs. ''That's two more years that contaminants are flowing into the drinking water.''

The delays mean that three years after the city committed to spending more than $75 million to fix the plants, no construction has begun, and more than 10 million gallons a day of inadequately treated waste water continues to mix with water bound for city taps, Mr. Tierney said.

Mary Mears, a spokeswoman for the federal Environmental Protection Agency, said yesterday that the pace of the sewage cleanup was ''an important part of our decision as to whether to allow the city to continue to avoid filtering.''

Over all, water quality remains high. But as development intensifies in the rural and suburban hills around the city's 19 reservoirs, she and Mr. Tierney said, contamination could worsen without the sewage-plant improvements.

The work on the plants is an important component of a five-year $600 million city plan to stop pollution from tainting its biggest, cleanest reservoirs, which are in the Catskills. That plan was announced with much fanfare by city and state officials in 1997 and succeeded in averting a federal order for the city to filter its water.

The sewage plants, dotted around the reservoirs from Westchester to Delaware Counties, have long been seen by water experts as a source of pollution and parasites like cryptosporidium, which can cause diarrhea and severe complications in people with weakened immune systems.

The report from the attorney general's office echoes concerns raised in a letter sent by the E.P.A. to city water officials last fall.

''We're very concerned that the city is in jeopardy of missing most if not all of its deadlines for the sewage plant upgrades,'' Ms. Mears said yesterday. Next month, the agency is scheduled to issue a detailed interim report on the city's cleanup, and it will focus significantly on the sewage problem, Ms. Mears said. She said it was unlikely that continuing sewage problems alone would result in an eventual filtration order, but added that progress on this work ''is certainly a very key requirement.''

New York City is the only large city in the United States that has no filters for its water but also has sewage plants releasing waste water into its reservoirs.

So far, the enormous volume of the system -- more than a billion gallons a day -- has minimized the potential harm from the 10 million gallons a day flowing from the waste plants. But the E.P.A. has tightened rules for drinking water in recent years, leading to pressure on the city to clean up the plants.

Of particular concern are intestinal parasites like cryptosporidium, which are difficult to kill with chlorination alone and which can travel in poorly treated waste water.

Responding to the state report yesterday, Joel A. Miele, the city's commissioner of environmental protection, acknowledged that the program was behind schedule, but said state officials were not helping matters by focusing on criticizing the city instead of prodding upstate communities to cooperate.

A major roadblock for the project, he said, has been that the money and technical help are coming from the city, but the work must be initiated by the dozens of communities that own and use the plants.

''We're effectively dealing with 102 different entities,'' Mr. Miele said, referring to the plants' owners. ''That in itself is mind-boggling.''

He said some communities with old plants where repairs were particularly important were continuing to delay work for a variety of reasons, including trying to get more money from the city and exploiting the issue in local politics.

Mr. Miele declined to name specific towns because negotiations are still under way. ''Some players are stalling for political reasons or economic advantage, and there are others who really want to get together with us and get this done,'' he said.

He said Eliot L. Spitzer, the attorney general, should have directed his office's criticism away from the city and toward state agencies that could help put pressure on watershed towns to accelerate the work.

Other city officials went further, implying that Mr. Spitzer, who is a Democrat, and the E.P.A., operating under a Democratic administration, were trying to use the issue to hurt Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican who is running for a United States Senate seat against Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But in defense of his office's report, Mr. Spitzer noted that his subordinate, Mr. Tierney, had been appointed by two Republicans, Mr. Pataki and Dennis C. Vacco, a former attorney general.

Politics of one sort or another has shaped key features of the watershed cleanup. The effort -- including the sewage-plant work -- had its start three years ago, when the city signed agreements with the state, the federal government and communities around its upstate watersheds. Under the agreements, the city pledged to pay for upgrades at the sewage plants, to buy land to expand buffer zones around the reservoirs, and to enact rules limiting development and other activities that could contaminate the drinking water.

From the start, the city plan was seen by all parties involved as a compromise between keeping the water clean and accounting for the needs of the communities near the reservoirs. The result, by all accounts, is that the city is able to exert only limited control over activities in the 2,000 square miles of suburban and rural hills that funnel rainwater toward city taps.

Now, though, the weaknesses in the plan are becoming clearer, according to water quality experts. And the biggest weakness, many of them say, is in the effort to improve the sewage plants.

Yesterday, responding to Mr. Miele's comments, Mr. Tierney said it was still ultimately up to the city to move the project from planning to the pouring of concrete.

He acknowledged that the city's challenge, dealing with dozens of plant owners, was daunting. ''I don't envy them this task,'' he said. ''But these plants are the linchpin on a whole array of things. That's why it's really urgent that they get moving.''